Start Talking: The Power of Storytelling

Sharing family stories and memories aloud can create a powerful bond with the people you love, build resilience, and even boost happiness. Want to fill in the gaps in your own family history? Check out these questions.

When members of the Simmons-Dorch clan gather at Aunt Ollie's house in the Florida Panhandle for the winter holidays, they like to tell stories — like the one about Great-Grandpa Oscar, who once wooed a wealthy widow by wrapping the few dollar bills he had around a wad of newspaper, then casually letting it drop from his pocket, leaving the impression that he was rolling in money. Or maybe Janet Simmons Claytor, now a grandmother herself, might reminisce about the time, when she was about 9, that Grandma Dorch convinced her that cows could talk on Christmas Eve and how disappointed she was when none of the herd would speak to her. Sitting around the living room after Christmas dinner, the 30 or so aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins will probably hear more than a few beginnings like "We had this old mule" or "We barely kept food on the table," followed by a tale about the hardscrabble days when whoever is speaking was younger.

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Most of the stories have a punch line, though "you may have to listen all the way to the end for the funny part, and that can sometimes take a while," says Claytor, now 55 and a history teacher in Ocala, FL. But they are good for much more than just a laugh. "They let us know where we came from and reassure us that we have the ability to survive and thrive despite the fact that life is hard and people sometimes disappoint you," she says.

As it turns out, these kinds of stories can do even more: New research shows they can increase well-being, reduce anxiety and depression, reinforce feelings of closeness among family members, and build resilience for navigating life's normal ups and downs.

In fact, developing a strong family narrative may be the most important thing you can do for yourself and for your family, says Bruce Feiler, author of The Secrets of Happy Families. It sums up what your family is about and what it means to be a member: "We're about grit," for instance, or "We always stick together." A family narrative is made up of all the stories that get passed on daily, weekly, and annually, from the distant past (Great-Aunt Millie starting a pie-baking business) to recent times (finding a $10 bill on the bus yesterday morning). "Any time you talk about what it means to be a part of your family, you strengthen the whole," says Feiler. And the key? "Talking about not just the good times, but the negative events as well — the broken leg, the lost job, the rain that ruined the perfectly planned outdoor wedding."

Look for a Silver Lining
Stories about something good coming from something bad are particularly therapeutic, a large body of research in the emerging field of narrative psychology shows. People who structured their tales around an unfortunate event that ended up with short- or long-term benefits were found to be more active in making the world a better place for themselves and for future generations, reports Northwestern University psychologist Dan McAdams, Ph.D., author of The Redemptive Self. One pay-it-forward example: Evelyn Karozos, 59, grew up listening to her father's stories about emigrating from Greece at age 12; landing in a sixth-grade class in Warren, OH, without speaking a word of English; and being rescued by a sympathetic teacher who tutored him after school. Now a teacher in Indianapolis, Karozos recently saw an influx of Burmese refugees relocating to her town; their children, speaking no English, were enrolled in her classes. So she started spending afternoons tutoring these students in basic vocabulary words ("table," "flag," "Revolutionary War"). "If someone was kind enough to do that for my dad," says Karozos, "how could I not do the same for these kids?"

Humor can sometimes illuminate the positive takeaway in these lemonade-from-lemons stories. In 1996, Emily Pickle's grandmother, Martha, was hospitalized in Florida, suffering temporary symptoms that resembled dementia. "This was the year the Gators won the championship, and the quarterback was Danny Wuerffel. Football is a very big deal where we come from," explains Pickle, 32, a program coordinator at a pediatric oncology clinic in Orlando. When her mother and uncle went to visit, they found Grannie repeating, "Danny Wuerffel, Danny Wuerffel" over and over, as if she were reciting a prayer. When Pickle's Uncle Jay shared the anecdote with the rest of the family, he mimicked her reverence. "It was awful, but it was funny, too, the way he told us," she says. And beneath the laughter and the fear, Pickle's uncle was sending the message, "Grannie's going to recover from this; she's going to laugh, we're going to laugh, and this will be one more family story — not a family tragedy." And he was right.

What makes stories like these so potent — and gives your psyche a boost — is their redemptive quality: When something bad happens, but you find a way to use it to your advantage, you redeem (and transform) the negative experience. The tales have to be structured, with a beginning, a middle, and — most crucial — an end, a conclusion that makes sense of the situation and gives it meaning. Research has shown that people who tell these types of stories about themselves and their families are psychologically healthier than those who tell stories of defeat or of happy events that didn't involve overcoming a difficulty. Case in point: A 2009 study of Americans who directly experienced the 9/11 attacks showed that those who'd found something positive emerging from the tragedy — "We came together as a country," for instance — showed higher levels of well-being and lower levels of distress than those who had focused only on the horror.

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Similarly, a Northwestern study found that the way you interpret events may be even more important than what has actually happened. "It's not just the content of the story that matters, but the meaning you attach to it," says Theodore Waters, Ph.D., a psychologist and researcher at the University of Minnesota. Finding an upside to getting locked out of the house — e.g., seeing it as a chance for a cup of coffee with a new neighbor — is a healthy way to reconstruct the past. When you tell the story later, starting with your distress and ending with your new friendship, you model that healthy outlook for listeners.

Build your kids' resilience…
One of the best places to share stories, of course, is at the table. A 2010 study at Emory University, monitoring the dinner conversations of 37 families, found that stories were shared over a meal at a rate of one every five minutes, with 12% of them being from the parents' childhoods. These stories not only passed down the facts about where Dad grew up or what jobs Mom used to have, but also helped the kids see how they fit into a lineage, which in turn bolstered their self-esteem and sense of identity. Other studies found that tweens and teens who knew more about their family history had higher levels of self-acceptance and lower levels of anxiety and that they planned for the future more.

Knowing the family narrative makes children more resilient and aids them in dealing with all the normal but stressful transitions life presents — like starting at a new school, losing a friend, or being cut from a team. "When kids get into a rough spot, they think they're the first person this has ever happened to," says Feiler. "Sharing the family history lets them know in an indirect way that that's not true. In fact, they're part of a long line of people who got into rough spots — and found a way out of them." To get children of all ages to take in the message without bristling, try sharing a story starring you in a similarly vulnerable position ("When I had braces, I thought I was so ugly that I'd hide in the school library at lunchtime so no one would see me — and that's where I met my first boyfriend").

Divorced and blended families can tell stories to help introduce new stepsiblings and stepparents, while single-parent families can use stories to help their kids connect with absent members and feel as if they are part of a much bigger family. Lana Kenyon, 28, of Waitsfield, VT, is the daughter of a white mother and an African-American father she didn't meet until she was 6 and with whom she subsequently had only limited contact. But in the past few years, she has developed a relationship with her father's mother, her "Nana," and has been getting to know that side of her family through Nana's stories about growing up in segregated Georgia and then moving to Massachusetts, raising five of her own children and taking in foster children as well. Now a single mother of two, Kenyon, who owns her own cleaning business, passes on Nana's stories because, she says, "I want my kids to know both of their cultures." She particularly wants them to know about their heritage of strong, determined women who "chose to make something good out of situations that might break some people," Kenyon says. "I want to instill in my kids the belief that they have options, that they can be whatever they want to be."

…and your own
Stories can strengthen the bonds between adults, too. "A couple married 50 years will get social benefits from storytelling similar to those children do," says Waters. "They'll feel closer to each other." Getting together and recalling past experiences is a reminder of your shared past, so these stories reinforce your relationships with the people you love. And, once again, a redemptive outlook on these relationship stories can be especially beneficial; a 2013 study from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health looked at 150 couples and found that those who put positive twists on their love stories tended to have healthier and more lasting relationships. Since sharing true stories about yourself is an unobtrusive way to reveal personal information, it can help you make new friends, too.

Sometimes stories can help heal broken relationships or reduce tension when not-so-friendly relatives get together and make holiday reunions awkward. The retelling of old tales emphasizes common bonds rather than differences. "It can be healing to reminisce about a funny story that has nothing to do with the current problem keeping you apart," says psychologist Anne Fishel, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. Siblings who were close as children but have grown apart as adults, for instance, may find swapping stories of the past much less contentious than talking about their present differences. A single mother of four in Petaluma, CA, Maureen McGuigan, 56, grew up in rural Pennsylvania with four brothers and four sisters. This past spring, they reconvened for their father's 88th birthday, and she ended up bunking with the same sister with whom she'd shared a room (and sometimes a bed) as a child. "She's two years older than I am, and I didn't have the best relationship with her," says McGuigan. But as they found themselves again spending the night in the same bed, McGuigan, who was at first set to grin and bear it, says, "We stayed up till two o'clock in the morning, laughing, telling stories, talking about our childhood, saying, 'You remember the time when…?' Those stories are a common bond. That's all we have, so we reach for it."

Now, with the holiday table overflowing with everyone's favorite dishes and extended family gathered to offer multiple versions of the way things were, it's prime time for storytelling. "The holiday dinner itself is such a prompt for stories, because so many senses are stimulated. That helps people remember things," Fishel says. Then, when you get together the following year, the familiar smell of the stuffing, the taste of the pies, the candles in the menorah, or the bright star on top of the tree can trigger memories and get the stories flowing again. And because you're sharing them together, you are reaping a bounty of benefits and passing that wealth on to the next generation.

Here are three tips for getting the storytelling started:

1. Share photos
Albums, yearbooks, newspaper clippings — all are treasure troves for tales about the people in your family's past. Wedding and anniversary photos keep alive the history of a family falling in love and inspire questions about how parents and grandparents met.

2. Start with your traditions
Rituals, new and old — "the goofier, the better," says Bruce Feiler — are great fodder for stories. One family he interviewed hid frozen turkeys in the bushes every Thanksgiving so the kids could pretend to be Pilgrims hunting for food.

3. Talk over supper
The more people present, the better, says psychologist Anne Fishel, Ph.D. — especially if they like to interrupt. All those "That's not how it went!" interjections teach kids perspective — plus, when children join in the telling, they remember stories better, research shows.